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Infinity Franchise
The Infinity Franchise is an extremely large gang found throughout the entirety of Mystics of Trash and Violence, with evidence present of the gang's presence found in Garbage Island, the Endless Wastes, the terrain leading up to and possibly even including the City; however, the Infinity Franchise primarily operates in the ruins of Downtown Olathe and the surrounding area. Easily identifiable by their red Infinity Jerseys emblazoned with a green 88 and by their murderous nature, most enemies in the latter half of the first chapter belong to this gang. History The origins of the Infinity Franchise are directly tied to the unearthing of once-buried Kung Company-brand Infinity Jerseys. Dug up for reasons unknown by any in-game character, what once were simple sportswear items ended up imbuing their wearers with an insatiable urge for violence. Because of their iconic Jersey, members of the Franchise are often colloquially known as 'jerseyheads'. At an unknown point in time, perhaps even prior to the rediscovery of the Jerseys after the Flash, the Infinity Jerseys became tightly intertwined with a certain supernatural force, with one of its facets represented in-game by bureaucrat and recruiter Daniel Grind. "Fold" system Members of the gang are notorious for their wanton, reckless violence, with the culprit behind this desire to kill being a product of the group's ranking system: the more people a member kills, the higher their rank. In the Infinity Franchise, one's rank is dubbed a "fold", with the first "fold of Infinity" requiring eight kills. Each subsequent fold requires a larger number of kills with each kill explicitly being 'senseless', with each being in the name of violence and nothing more. A full list of folds and their prerequisite kills are as follows: * Fold One: 8 kills. * Fold Two: 24 kills. * Fold Three: 48 kills. * Fold Four: 80 kills. * Fold Five: 120 kills. * Fold Six: 168 kills. * Fold Seven: 224 kills. * Fold Eight: 288 kills. * Fold Nine: 360 kills. * Fold Ten: 440 kills. * Fold Eleven, the final fold: 528 kills. The sequence can be expressed with the equation: kills(fold)=\sum_{i=1}^{fold}8i\ \textrm{kills}. As a member of the Franchise rises in rank, their behavior changes significantly enough that they can be categorized by number of folds. Members with a low number of folds (thought to be less than four) tend to act more like traditional gangsters and are willing to co-operate with their fellow jerseyhead. After a certain number of folds are attained, members become lone wolves, operating by themselves and killing anybody who comes near in the name of a higher fold, be them friend or foe. Specifically, fold-based behavior can be organized into three groups: Less than four folds Members possessing less than four folds are the more docile, co-operative jerseyheads. Members include Alcohol Keeth, Lin Rhodes, Vinny Ramón, and others. Four-to-eight folds Members with greater than four folds but less than eight folds are the lone wolves of the Franchise. Otherwise, nothing remarkable occurs; at a glance, they are indiscernible from jerseyheads of a lesser fold. Eighth fold The eighth fold acts as a form of transitional phase from the mundane aspect of the lower folds to the much more mystical facets of the Franchise in the final folds. To understand the metaphysicality of the Franchise at this point and beyond, something first must be made known in regards to what goes on "in the background" of the faction. The violent gangsters are only the surface of the Franchise, and through their dialogue, inferences can be made in regards to the metaphysical forces that drive the Franchise. Firstly, can we even say that there is ''something going on "in the background"? The answer is almost certainly, and for multiple reasons. The first reason is Daniel Grind. It is known that, based off of the Blood Lake hallucination, that Daniel Grind possesses multiple supernatural qualities not found elsewhere, such qualities beyond the magics possessed by Prizmik, or by Silvester de Maistre. The most obvious of these occult qualities is the dimension in which Daniel Grind resides in, manifesting as an endless shallow pond of blood being endlessly pumped by a massive heart. Grind also has supernatural knowledge, having known the names of both Alex Churchland and Joel Miller before the duo even speak. Daniel Grind is capable of giving intangible concepts such as one's "inner child" or "hatred" a tangible, human form; furthermore, he is capable of conjuring such avatars of the intangible into reality. There also exists multiple ways for Daniel Grind to leave his extradimensional residence -- these ways are not known specifically, but could possibly imply teleportation or some other form of supernatural movement as there explicitly exist ''more than one ''ways for Grind to leave, but only ''one ''exit is seen in-game. Daniel Grind serves as a 'bureaucrat' of the Franchise, which is a position not held by any other individual in the game. Infinivity and You: Attaining Godhood through Violence A common assumption made by new players is that Grind is part of the Franchise's "leadership", which is incorrect. As told by Ed, the game's lead developer and writer, Grind is not the leader of the Franchise -- but more importantly, Ed states that such responsibilities fall unto 'infinity'. This is evidence that there is some kind of sentience beyond Daniel Grind in terms of power that assumes leadership of the faction, which is crucial to the deeper understanding of the faction. Additionally, certain jerseyheads such as Douglass Fiat refer to "infinity" as a state-of-mind or entity; Ed is quoted as describing Arnold Shpitz as "close to the unity of the knower and object of knowledge", also implying that the aforementioned "infinity" of Fiat is less a state-of-mind, and more-so something tangible; a "knower", or the "object of knowledge" -- at least, metaphysically speaking, it is tangible. Potentially, such an "infinite sentience" is akin more to an egregore, or a simply unknowable divinity. To refer back to Ed's previous quote regarding Arnold Shpitz' apparent closeness to this "infinite sentience", and keeping in mind that Arnold Shpitz at least bears eight folds or at most nine, an assertion can be made that each fold brings a jerseyhead closer to the "infinite divinity", hence dubbed the 'infinivity'; a fold is a step on the stairway to heaven, so-to-speak. The closer one is to the infinivity as evidenced by Arnold Shpitz and, to an extent, Daniel Grind, the more mystical powers are attained. Even assuming Shpitz' manifold mutation to simply be a hallucination, you simply cannot also state the events of the battle to be mere hallucination -- even if Shpitz did not mutate, he received a seemingly miraculous boost of energy (having been fatigued in his pre-manifold state); was capable of moving fast enough that he was able to move twice per turn; was capable of emitting a poisonous substance from his body in the form of a 'hallucinatory' Core's spray; was seemingly granted immense endurance represented by the health pools of the Polyfold and the Monofold, and by the 'abominable regeneration' of the Core; and lastly, all of these blessings being granted to Shpitz after being pummeled into the dirt represented by his pseudo-death in his first pre-manifold phase. So, regardless of whether or not one may view the manifold mutation as nothing more than hallucination, there is objective evidence of supernatural magicks at play. Of Daniel Grind's supernatural powers, it can safely be asserted that his otherworldly qualities and tricks are of a much higher caliber than those of Arnold Shpitz' -- a battlefield blessing is not as immense as an entire residential dimension, nor is it as significant as being able to conjure anthropomorphized concepts into reality, nor is it comparable to supernatural intelligence. Given Grind's apparent rank as a 'bureaucrat' of the Franchise, it can be safely asserted that Grind is of a superior echelon than any rank achievable by the average jerseyhead -- to make a comparison, Grind is an angel to the infinivity's God; the aeon to the Monad. A servant of the higher power, granted mystical powers in exchange for furthering the higher power's goals. "But -", you may say "- there exists no such proof of this 'infinivity' having any goals to speak of", which is a reasonable suspicion but is unfortunately incorrect. Daniel Grind is a recruiter for the Franchise, as evidenced by in-game interactions. So, knowing that Grind is ''not ''the boss, then whoever ''is the boss wanted him to recruit more members for the Franchise -- this means that one of the goals of the infinivity is to gain more members for the Franchise. This in turn also implies that another goal is to kill off as many people as possible, as such a goal is deeply intertwined with a goal like "recruit more jerseyheads" due to the nature of the jerseyhead. To recap: * There exists some form of consciousness or sentience beyond the tangible world that controls the Franchise through bureaucrats such as Daniel Grind. * One goal of this theoretical consciousness, hence known as the infinivity, is to kill as many people as possible. However, it cannot directly interact with the world, so it enlists the aid of the jerseyheads and of the bureaucrats to respectively a.) kill as many people as possible and b.) get more jerseyheads to kill more people. * Jerseyheads can gain mystical powers/"blessings" from the aforementioned infinivity by rising in fold count. This is the explanation for the Arnold Shpitz manifold mutation/hallucination. Category:Chapter 1: Mystics of Trash and Violence Category:Gangs Category:Infinity Franchise